SHOULD I STAY WITH TIVOHD ON TWC OR SWITCH BACK TO THE SA DVR? Advice please.

I am a TWC customer in the Albany region. I was using the SA HDMI HD DVR supplied by TW. I actually liked the picture quality very much, and also the speed and interactivity of the guide and the remote. Also, I enjoyed some of the On Demand programming.

However, as you all realize, the firmware for finding shows was really terrible. For example, a Title search only allowed seaching on the first letter of the Title, which, of course yielded hundreds of programs to scroll through.

So, having previously been a Tivo user, I decided to purchase the TivoHD and return to something that my wife and I both loved.

The installation of the Cable Cards however was a nightmare. The TWC tech arrived and immediately tried to discourage me from making the switch. (By the way, even though i was giving back the TWC SA DVR, my monthly rate was going to be increased (above and beyond the rental of the cable cards) because I was no longer on the package....thus paying more for less equipment). I then insisted I wanted to go ahead with the switch to Tivo. The Tech then kept trying to install the cable cards and one after another was failing (it took 30 minutes to determine that the programming of a card failed).

He kept trying different cards until finally he got them to work. He was at my house for an entire day.

So now the cable cards work, and we enjoy the Tivo features very much. But I do have some misgivings which make me wonder whether I should eventually switch back to the SA DVR. The TWC rep tells me that they are developing better and improved firmware...IS THIS TRUE???

1. There is always a delay or lag when I change channels

2. We are losing more and more stations as TW transitions to Switch Digital

3. THere is occasionally a lack of sychronization between video and audio (lip synch issue...and no i am not feeding the video through my AV receiver...it is direct HDMI to the Plasma TV

I'm a new Tivo customer with TWC in San Antonio; I'm personally about a 2 out of 10 on the "techie" scale. They came on Tuesday to install (or screw up) a cablecard at my expense - $65 which I fully intend to get back the next time I speak with them. After what seemed like decades on the phone with tech support yesterday and today, we finally got SOME of the HD channels working. After several more "trouble shooting" issues, the phone tech support told me the following HD channels (which I'm receiving on my HD cable box) are not available on a cable card:

I am a TWC customer in the Albany region. I was using the SA HDMI HD DVR supplied by TW. I actually liked the picture quality very much, and also the speed and interactivity of the guide and the remote. Also, I enjoyed some of the On Demand programming.

However, as you all realize, the firmware for finding shows was really terrible. For example, a Title search only allowed seaching on the first letter of the Title, which, of course yielded hundreds of programs to scroll through.

So, having previously been a Tivo user, I decided to purchase the TivoHD and return to something that my wife and I both loved.

The installation of the Cable Cards however was a nightmare. The TWC tech arrived and immediately tried to discourage me from making the switch. (By the way, even though i was giving back the TWC SA DVR, my monthly rate was going to be increased (above and beyond the rental of the cable cards) because I was no longer on the package....thus paying more for less equipment). I then insisted I wanted to go ahead with the switch to Tivo. The Tech then kept trying to install the cable cards and one after another was failing (it took 30 minutes to determine that the programming of a card failed).

He kept trying different cards until finally he got them to work. He was at my house for an entire day.

So now the cable cards work, and we enjoy the Tivo features very much. But I do have some misgivings which make me wonder whether I should eventually switch back to the SA DVR. The TWC rep tells me that they are developing better and improved firmware...IS THIS TRUE???

1. There is always a delay or lag when I change channels

2. We are losing more and more stations as TW transitions to Switch Digital

3. THere is occasionally a lack of sychronization between video and audio (lip synch issue...and no i am not feeding the video through my AV receiver...it is direct HDMI to the Plasma TV

Any thoughts??

Larry

i don't know about your audio sync issue, but the delay in channel changing might be due to your tv "catching up" with the format change of the different channels (480, 720, 1080 etc.) if you change the settings in the tivoHD to a fixed res. you will get faster channel changes.
see here: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=379507

i'm not sure about your area, maybe it's different on what HD channels you receive, but here in so. cal, all HD channels that were currently available to you w/ the box & your subscript, will be there with the cards.

regarding the TWC DVR, i would stay with the tivo if i were you. the tech that was out today to install the cards in our tivoHD & mentioned how upset people got when they had hardware issues with the TWC DVR's. when one went bad, they'd just replace it with another one.... no problem right? well, that means all the recordings were lost, and the customers didn't like that. that's their solution to all the hardware problems, just replace it with another box out of the truck.

btw, it took him 4hrs, 3 S-cards, 1 M-card and finally got it working with 2 S-cards.

Got one of the Woot.com TivoHD units delivered two days ago, and called this morning to get scheduled for a CableCARD installation. I was informed they could come out this afternoon, and they did. They sent out a contractor instead of an actual TWC technician. But the guy had an M CableCARD, installed it in the TivoHD unit, and was on his way about 30 minutes after he arrived. No fee, no questions. I'm still going through what channels I receive and what channels I am missing (because of SDV), but the installation was completely painless.

Got one of the Woot.com TivoHD units delivered two days ago, and called this morning to get scheduled for a CableCARD installation. I was informed they could come out this afternoon, and they did. They sent out a contractor instead of an actual TWC technician. But the guy had an M CableCARD, installed it in the TivoHD unit, and was on his way about 30 minutes after he arrived. No fee, no questions. I'm still going through what channels I receive and what channels I am missing (because of SDV), but the installation was completely painless.

Good luck everyone!

Same here. Got mine from woot as well. TWC got the Mcard up and running last night, but took longer than that. I didn't let him leave until I had verified each and every channel that I was supposed to be getting.

Waited all day for my M-Card installation. TWC installer called on his way over and said, "I'm to swap out the cablecards in your 8300HDC." Uh, no - install MCard in my TivoHD. Arrggg. Nice one, TWC. Not that I'm surprised. The Cincinnati branch has some of the most inept reps who man the phones - they put the WO in all wrong.

He didn't have an M on him, and the warehouse was already closed - so I wasted a whole day. Scheduled again for tomorrow morning.

Thought I'd update my story ... as I suspected, the sales rep who insisted that they only had S-cards was, shall we say, ill-informed. The installer showed up today with two M-cards in his pocket, and he told me the S-cards are pretty much impossible to get these days. (I will be interested to see what shows up on my bill. I won't be at all surprised if they charge me rental for two cards, since that's what the sales rep put me down for.)

Everything went as smoothly as I could have hoped. This guy had obviously done TiVos before ... he did the installation, Guided Setup, and everything without any trouble.

One interesting hiccup ... after he had everything done, the TiVo lost the ability to play back any video at all, not even prerecorded stuff. Even the animated menu backdrop was gone, replaced with a gray screen. Presumably this is because all video playback must go through the CableCARD, and there was some transient glitch between the card and the box. Anyway, we did a reset, and everything worked fine.

I seem to be getting everything I'm supposed to get, HD channels included. So as others have reported, SDV seems to be a non-issue here so far. Now I just have to find an HDMI cable for a reasonable price...

Waited all day for my M-Card installation. TWC installer called on his way over and said, "I'm to swap out the cablecards in your 8300HDC." Uh, no - install MCard in my TivoHD. Arrggg. Nice one, TWC. Not that I'm surprised. The Cincinnati branch has some of the most inept reps who man the phones - they put the WO in all wrong.

He didn't have an M on him, and the warehouse was already closed - so I wasted a whole day. Scheduled again for tomorrow morning.

You're out of luck tomorrow too. The warehouse is closed on the weekends. You should be able to get a $20 credit for a no show. I have not had any problems with the techs here in Cincinnati. They have been great. I personally asked for an M-card and had them note it on my account. Good luck!

Evidently he called his supervisor who allowed it. We'll see - scheduled for the morning.

Installer came this morning. Very nice guy - said this was his first M-Card install (he's only done the S). Most of the wait was for the TWC systems to authorize and setup the card. Additionally, their systems were slow to 'close the work order ticket' - so they forced it closed and my channels updated almost instantly.

Had to redo the setup, and the system updated with the Fall 2007, but I'm up and running now with all the HD channels on the HD Tier.

I just got 2 S cards installed yesterday - TW Southeast Wisconsin. The guys showed up and said he thought he was just swapping boxes and missed the part on the work order about CableCards. He had to drive back to Racine (about 30 minuteseach way) to get them. He was really nice about it, though. I told him to look for M cards (he had no idea what I was talking about, as he had never installed CCs before.), and to grab several. He came back right away, reinforced that he has never done this before, and got to it. He only had S cards. After about an hour he said eerything was working, but the cards would still need to be service enabled. He left and said he woul dcall me back later. AFter about two hours it seemed that one was working but not the other. He called me and I let him know. He called me back 15 minutes later and said, "try again." I did and everything worked. So far, so good, and I really think the picture quality is better with the CC decoders than with the SA HD box. I see much less pixelation (so far), anyway. All in all, a pretty good experience - far better than I would have expected.

I have been feeling the pain of SDV with my Series 3 since the first of the year. In Maine, Time Warner is rolling out all new HD channels using SDV and that means I can't receive them until the new SDV device is released. TW does not seem to care much about Tivo CableCard customers as they sent the (attached) letter telling us that we won't be able to receive new channels as well as the 68 SDV channels they have already. Needless to say, I was looking forward to National Geographic HD and History HD!

I'll be first in line for the SDV dongle to connect to Tivo USB port, but when is this coming? When it is approved for use with Tivo's, how long will we have to wait before TW in Maine supports it? Will the local cable company need to validate that the device works?

I am pushing my local TW office for a free DVR in the meantime, but that is an uphill battle since their response so far has been "you chose the Tivo so you can't complain..."

I have been feeling the pain of SDV with my Series 3 since the first of the year. In Maine, Time Warner is rolling out all new HD channels using SDV and that means I can't receive them until the new SDV device is released. TW does not seem to care much about Tivo CableCard customers as they sent the (attached) letter telling us that we won't be able to receive new channels as well as the 68 SDV channels they have already. Needless to say, I was looking forward to National Geographic HD and History HD!

I'll be first in line for the SDV dongle to connect to Tivo USB port, but when is this coming? When it is approved for use with Tivo's, how long will we have to wait before TW in Maine supports it? Will the local cable company need to validate that the device works?

I am pushing my local TW office for a free DVR in the meantime, but that is an uphill battle since their response so far has been "you chose the Tivo so you can't complain..."

I'll be first in line for the SDV dongle to connect to Tivo USB port, but when is this coming? When it is approved for use with Tivo's, how long will we have to wait before TW in Maine supports it? Will the local cable company need to validate that the device works?
(

Don't forget: how much extra will the dongle cost per month? how much will it cost to get it installed?

ARGH!!!!!!! TWC Austin just keeps trying to push me away. I keep trying to stay and hope for the tuning resolver / usb dongle but the way things are going, I'm getting less and less for the 1K i put into my S3. (purchase and lifetime) I love the S3 but if I can't get the channels I want, even though they are available, where does that leave me???? I so love my tivo's, but I'm doing more and more research into Directv. I just need to get a few more bits of info, and then TWC is going to lose me for cable. I'm sure they will bump up the price of my Internet connection, but they will lose over 100.00 a month (1,200.00 + a year) in cable costs from me. Anyone out there in TWC land listening? Except you Cableguy. I know your on our side. Anyone know if you can do Directv without a long term commitment if you buy the boxes outright? I think you can, but have not had that one confirmed yet.

And yea, I'm not in Austin proper either, I'm in Cedar Park, but it's all the same thing. My best friend up in Dallas has D* and I've seen his setup, and it looks better than what I get. But no Tivo interface. He's as big a fan of tivo as I am, but, he also has a big hate for TWC so would never go with them. I don't hate TWC, but I do feel like I'm getting screwed. It just does not seem fair.

I got the Woot! special (TiVoHD) and asked for an M-card when I called for the appointment. (Here is San Diego, they won't allow you to self-install.) She didn't know what I was talking about...said they only support single direction. I asked her to note it for the installer--one multi-stream card.

Installer showed up according to schedule. Said he had only done 1 or 2 TiVo boxes previously. Had an M-card with him. Popped it in, let me "drive" the TiVo setup. Called it in... and it all worked first time. He left in under 10 minutes. Cool!

After he left, I went to install the WD 1TB that I got from Buy.com... but the drive was DOA. That's for another post...

I haven't had my HD TiVo long enough to see how routine channel lineup changes are handled, but I did have an interesting experience yesterday trying to add a premium channel.

I went through the TWC website to add HBO to my account, and I was hoping to see something happen immediately. After an hour or so, it was still a black screen, so I called and asked when I should expect the change to take effect. The rep verified with me that I had a CableCARD rather than a box; she then re-sent the authorization signal, and I saw HBO appear.

So I am wondering whether there's some idiosyncracy of CableCARDs that requires extra human intervention when a channel gets added. I'm hoping not, and that the problem was actually just with the automated back-end for the website.

Several people have posted about postive TWCNY experiences here, which emboldened me to finally get a TivoHD. I just wanted to add my encouragement to those in the area. My experience was entirely positive. Why is it that the folks on the phone at TWCNY are uniformly idiots and the people they send out are usually amazingly helpful and competent?

I had to arrive a few minutes late for my appointement (the helpful CSR had told me the wrong day), but the installer called me on the phone and agreed to wait ten minutes. Better yet, when I arrived, there were two vans parked in front of my house with no other nearby parking (this is Brooklyn). One of the guys offered to give me his parking spot! I guess they have no problem double-parking.

For some reason, there were three guys. They very quickly installed an M-card and told me they do a lot of TiVo installs these days. Unfortunately, the cable signal was too weak. They confirmed this by running a long test cable from upstairs to my box. With this configuration they rebooted and the TiVo said it would take an hour, so the guys took off for lunch. They told me that their dispatcher said they couldn't run any new cables today, but when they returned they had already received permission to go ahead. Evidently, the installer had argued that he already knew the set-up here and could do the job right and it would ultimately save time. Anyway, it took them a surprising short time to run a new cable through the wall, replace some stuff and leave me happy, with a beautiful picture on all channels.

So I'm back in TiVo heaven! I hooked up a broadband network too, which is nice. But unfortunately, most all the programs I store on my TiVo can't be transferred because they are "copy protected". Does anyone else who used TWCNYC have this problem too?

I'm trying to edit my channel list to get rid of channels I don't care about, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what's what in some cases. I'm a newcomer to TWC (longtime DTV customer), so maybe someone can help me out.

Several questions:

Many channels in the lineup are duplicated. In some cases (like the locals) I guess I'm seeing the analog version and the digital version, but I'm not sure. In other cases (like the Science Channel, at both 111 and 357) I have no idea why they're duplicated. Am I missing something?

Is there any reliable way to tell whether a channel is analog or digital?

In cases where there's an HD and SD version of the same channel, is there any reason to keep both in my channel list?

I'd be interested to know how others have handled this. It's a bit confusing scheduling recordings now because of the multiple listings for the same show on the same channel.

UPDATE: I just ran across TWC's "Digital Simulcast" FAQ. Somehow I'd missed that before. So I guess I don't need to worry about analog channels.

We've had Tivo for years (we still have one) but gave up our HD one when we had so much trouble with the cards. The tech told us that the new adapter was suppose to come out to make it work but I haven't seen one yet. The time warner DVR sucks after you've gotten spoiled byt the tivo interface. Has any one in austin got this working?

We've had Tivo for years (we still have one) but gave up our HD one when we had so much trouble with the cards. The tech told us that the new adapter was suppose to come out to make it work but I haven't seen one yet. The time warner DVR sucks after you've gotten spoiled byt the tivo interface. Has any one in austin got this working?

The tuning resolver is not out yet. So no, nobody has gotten it working.

I've had Tivos for years and love them. I recently purchased an HD model from Woot! and did my research on cable cards. I've had a _horrible_ experience with TWC getting the cards installed, similar to the problems others have mentioned.

I understand that I'm limited to one-way services, and that I can't get VOD, guides, etc. I realized today however that I also wasn't receiving a certain ranges of digital channels. I received conflicting info from different TWC people. The last person I talked to stated I "would not be able to receive channels 100-201" and that "while they are standard digital cable channels their cable cards did not support this as they required 2-way service."

Is this really true? They had a lot of problems setting this up so I don't trust what I'm being told. Thanks!